"Chilly Bones" - Rosie and I participated in the Celebrity Ghosts 5K, Friday night, October 28, 7:30 p.m. in Uptown Westerville. The spooky event was part of the Westerville Visitors Bureau Halloween celebration during the "fourth Friday" street party held monthly! 181 runners and walkers donned their dead favorite celebrity costume and ran in a chilly 38 degree temp down cobblestone streets, eerie bike paths and dark river trails during the 3.1 event. I found some skeleton tights at Joann fabric that filled the bill for our costumes! One volunteer remarked as I ran past . . "You must be a ghost of a runner in winter" . . . so we proclaimed our celebrities to be: Marie-Louise Ledru, French, the first recorded woman to run an Olympic marathon in 1918 and "Spyros" Louis, a Greek water carrier, winner of the first Modern Day Olympic Marathon in 1896. Marie & Spyros would have been proud of their "boney" racing doubles! Fun time . . . . and our skeletons glowed in the dark! Happy Halloween!

Three Grandsons playing Football! (Bottom left) Cecilia & Duane's son Brandon is a 5th grader playing youth football in Albuquerque for the Eagles. Mom says it's been difficult keeping him injury free. Brandon has finished football this season, basketball is starting, and in Albuquerque, baseball is still going for him.

(Bottom Right) Aiden is a 3rd grader playing CYO football for Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School. Mindy & Chris have a difficult time keeping up with his busy schedule. He'll jump right into basketball. Aiden attended Butler University Basketball Camp. (Aiden is #16, 1st row, 1st player on right) (Top Right) Josh, a sophomore, is the starting Quarterback for the Zionsville High School reserve football team.

Mike is very proud of Josh's performance this season for the Eagles. Grandpa is proud of all three!

Autumn at The Medallion Golf Club "Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all." Stanley Horowitz

The Autumn Leaves at Alum Creek State Park . . our home is 1/2 mile from the reservoir . . great walking/running paths, excellent fishing,and beautiful during the fall. "Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile." William Cullen Bryant

The "Singing Buckeye" Chorus competed in the JAD (Johnny Appleseed District) Fall Contest Saturday, October 15, and raised our previous score from the Spring. Our contest package ("In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" & "A Little Patch of Heaven . . . Way Out West"was performed in western outfits . . . cowboys by the campfire at the end of a round-up. A picture of the Chorus in our western gear can be found on page 30 of the summer Cider Press, District newsletter: http://www.singjad.com/docs/cider_press/2011_cp_summer.pdf. It was a good weekend for our quartets also with seven Buckeye Quartets performing. We are now waiting to see if our chorus scores are high enough to earn us an "at-large" bid to the BHS International Chorus contest next summer in Portland, Oregon. Here are some comments from our Chorus Director, Chad Wulf:

"It was a fantastic weekend and we are all just recovering. The 51 guys we were able to take up to Lima sang their hearts out and finished with a score of 1405 or 78.1 average. Our spring score was 77.2, so it is a full point higher per judge...which is fantastic.

Perhaps the even more exciting part is that we finished in third place beating Northwest Ohio by 51 points (who beat us in the spring by 4 points) and beating Gary Lewis's chorus Independence by 8 points who beat us to win the District in 2010.

The full sheet is below....

http://www.singjad.com/docs/2011_dist_chorus.pdf

We will talk more on Tuesday about what it all means....we won't know about Portland for a little time still. Our scores put us on the edge of qualifying so we will have to wait until all the districts are finished."

We also had a great showing from all of our quartets. I won't go into it all here but you can check the scores out at the JAD website: http://www.singjad.com/

The kitchen project is almost completed. Hardware has been selected; paint colors chosen; window coverings are next. By the way, there's an alarm on the refrigerator door . . so don't stand there too long with the door open! Old fridg on left, new on the right!

View of old and new counter tops, sink, faucets, and dishwasher. Friend Bob is providing the Budweiser after-work refreshments.

The new granite is "Bianco Antico" Now toadd a coat of paint to the walls and new hardware for the cabinets!

Before and after . . . a series of pictures showing our kitchen prior to and after completion! (October 3-7)

Getting ready for Halloween!

October Sky! New Front Landscape! "Rosie, the sky is different over here."
“But I remember more dearly autumn afternoons in bottoms that lay intensely silent under old great trees”- C. S. Lewis Joel's crew from Ciminello Landscape completed our front landscaping project with new plants and a beautiful retaining wall! (10/2)

Happy Birthday, Rose Anne! (9/30)

Football Saturday for Riley in Franklin and an early B-Day celebration for Alexis! Nana finally got to see Riley play football as an "Indiana Hoosier"! "Hey ref, throw the flag . . that was unnecessary roughness against my Grandson!" (9/24)

"Gemulicheit" . . . . German for a cozy, social environment that depicts the Oktoberfest! Fun, food, and a "Meiler Vier" race complete with Alp Horns marks the festivities each fall in Columbus. Rosie and I again celebrated the opening of Oktoberfest, September 23, by watching the "tapping of the keg", then running the "Meiler Vier", or "Four Miler" along with 433 other runners. This was my personal best for the year (first in my Age Group, 60-69 & 142 over-all; Rose Anne also ran well finishing 5 or 9 in her Age Group. Perhaps we were anticipating the Post race festivities . . . . a Beer, a Brat, and a Cream Puff . . and good German Beergarten bands! Prost!